


stitched unto the velvet sky

by Self_san



Series: the howl of the night [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Always-a-girl!Stiles, Being a teenager SUCKS, But that's Werewolves for ya, F/M, Pack Feels, Pack Mom Stiles Stilinski, UST, Underage Implications, canonical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 05:05:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Self_san/pseuds/Self_san
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because the moon watches, and she is ever smiling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stitched unto the velvet sky

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the Christine Lavin song, 'I Want to Be a Mysterious Woman.'

After almost a month, Stiles has to admit: they were getting this shit _down_.

This shit being fighting as a unit.

Which, really, for all it was scary as hell, was freaking _awesome_.

They really _are_ improving, she knows, and it’s a heady thought that if something tries to hurt _her_ , hurt her _Pack_ , she can defend herself, and them.

Stiles Stilinski can kick _ass_.

This thought, blazing and bright and attention grabbing, comes as she’s sling-shooting Alison through the air, the other girl grinning with sharp teeth as she flies into Scott’s comically wide-eyed face, forcing them both through a thin wall, one of the many that the rail-depot offers for the Pack’s smashing pleasure.

A few feet away, Jackson is distracting Derek with his claws, slipping through the Beta’s defenses with a scowl, glaring as Derek spins away like lightening.

That leaves--

Oh, _shit_ , Stiles realizes with a jolt of something incredibly akin to _dread_ , as she turns just in time to duck under the punch that Chris throws at her face, silent and utterly ruthlessly following up with a jab at her stomach, catching her off guard and sweeping her feet out from under her as her breath wheezes through her teeth.

Thoughtlessly, the moves having been drilled into her head by the same man these past weeks, Stiles rolls, thoughtless to the broken glass and rough concrete covering the ground. Small marks will heal easier than the broken ribs she’d get from Chris _stomping_ on her, and if the ground bites into her skin like wasp-stings, Stiles ignores it, surging to her knees and then shooting up, snarling as she barrels into Chris’s stomach.

She takes both of them down, driving her elbow into his sternum, smacking away his arms as her fingers inch towards his throat.

If Stiles draws blood there, he’s _out_. Effectively ‘ _Dead_ ’.

And seeing as _he’s_ the biggest threat, after Peter of course, who often takes them all on at once, just for fun…

Well, that was Peter. Broad shouldered, blue-eyed, multiple-personality-poster-child Peter; who was at times _loud_ and laughing and joyous, or, alternatively, silent and solemn and _empty_ , a _wolf_ in human skin, lurking around the outskirts of the group like he was watching for attack, for violence to burst into being.

But Chris? Slim, Ken-doll Hunter Chris, like Dean Winchester only _better_ , because he did that shit for _real_. _Chris_ , who was slim to Peter’s broad, corded to Peter’s sheer _bulk_ , who could fake it and make it as _normal_ but who, really, was more quiet. _Insightful_. A strategist at heart, who knew how to follow orders to the letter and spirit, but still improve them all the same. Who would sometimes look at Stiles, pained, and turn his eyes to the sky, to the moon, to _Peter_ , who would look back with something that was a cousin to _challenge_ in his eyes, but not really, because Peter was the _Alpha_ , after all.

Out of the entire Pack, Chris and Peter were a tie for most deadly in Stiles’s book, only…not _really_. Because while _darkness_ was in both their hearts, and _both_ could have been born of the shadows, for all their grace and _edge_ , Peter was _insane_.

And you couldn’t _reason_ with madness, not the kind that Peter held.

Still, for now, Chris was her target, and Peter was just a referee, and with Jackson and Allison busy…

If she could just--

Desperately, Stiles tries to keep Chris’s hips pinned so that he can’t get leverage to throw her, her nerves buzzing like she’s licked a shot of pure _lightening_ as bare skin slides on bare skin, the smell of his sweat heady in her nose, something pure and earthy and _musky_ ; utterly _Chris_.

It has her teeth tingling, her heart practically vibrating inside the fleshy suitcase of her chest.

Electric blue eyes meet their twin, and Stiles’s fingers _almost_ _touch_ \--

They don’t get there--Derek ripping her away by the back of her shirt, his claws shredding through the fabric like paper, burning as they rake down her back, drawing blood.

He throws her, but not before Stiles returns the favor, slicing up the inside of his arm, furious at the thought that she was out of a shirt. _Again_.

Then she’s slamming into a brick wall, her head smacking crumbly old stone before she can get her arms up to shield, and then she’s on the ground, blinking up at the blurry ceiling.

For a second, Stiles can’t feel _anything_ , but it all comes rushing back in a sickening flood; the smell of the Pack, their clothing and blood and _sweat_ , the feeling of the ground beneath her arms and back, through her torn shirt, the pain in her limbs and the stinging of her cuts, and the suddenly dizzying agony of her cheek and jaw, like someone had pounded her face with a _sledgehammer_.

Black and grey tendrils fuzz around the corners of her vision, but Derek is _on top of her_ , snarling, his face shifted and his teeth bared wide, and there are no tap-outs in this game, and, for a second, Stiles honestly can’t _think_.

All she sees is _Derek_ , and his hands are going for her _throat_ , and she doesn’t _trust_ him, for all that he’s _Pack_ , that she _should know his skin like she does her own…_

If it had been Allison, Scott, Jackson, _Chris_ …

But it isn’t.

It’s _Derek_.

And it doesn’t _matter_.

It doesn’t _matter_ that Stiles just wants to _quit_ , that she doesn’t _want_ to play this game anymore, tears burning in her throat and her entire body a huge, throbbing ache.

She just _reacts_.

It’s bloody.

There is a heartbreaking, wounded _howl_ that rends the air, but Stiles can’t hear anything pouring out of her mouth over the pounding of her heart, the dripping of her blood as it spatters against Derek’s cheek, where he’s suddenly prostrate beneath her.

His arms are collapsed beside him, the tendons of his upper arms cut with clinical precision, and Stiles’s fingers burn with the feeling of his blood.

His face is shocked, suddenly venerable and lax, like he doesn’t understand what just happened.

That would make two of them.

“ _Enough_!” Stiles realizes that she’s crying, silently, slow, sparse tears mixing with blood as it splatters down, and it’s staining Derek’s face, his high cheekbones and running down, past his mouth and pooling along his chin, then down, over his neck.

Her hands are gentle but numb as they’re clasped over Derek’s pale neck, her claws just long enough to prick skin, drawing little beads of red that mix with her own.

She isn’t squeezing, isn’t choking, she’s just…holding him, crying like a tired child and tremulous as she meets his eyes.

She _wants_ to tell him… _tries_ to tell him…

But she _can’t_ , her mouth anesthetized, her shoulders shivering. She doesn’t know what to _do_ , how to _say_ \--

She leans down, her eyes still locked on his, and rests her forehead against his own. His skin is feverously hot.

“ _Enough_ , Derek,” she says, low and weak and _strong_ , all at the same time, crooning low in her throat, a rumbling that she leads into Derek’s ear.

Her hands are still around his throat, and her body is pressed to his, holding him to the ground. As such, she can feel it as his body just… _stops_. Stops tensing, stops trying to fight against her hold, and he relaxes, a huge breath leaving his lungs in a shaking rush, choked and pained as he closes his eyes and folds himself into her hold.

“ _Enough, Derek_ ,” she murmurs, and he is still.

The game is over.

*

When they get up, the rest of the Pack is crowded around, pressing their hands and arms against Derek, Allison with her cheek, touching and comforting and _familiar_.

Even Chris, clasping Derek’s neck and pulling him into a loose embrace, followed by Peter slinging his nephew into a tight hug under his arm.

Stiles lets him go, her arms hanging around her sides, and she’s suddenly so tired that she can hardly _think_.

 _Driving_ is out of the question, when all Stiles wants to do is--

Jackson is beside her, and at her _look_ he rolls his eyes and pulls her into a hug, too, his arms hard around her shoulders from working out and lacrosse and _this_ , this training shit that they’ve been doing _religiously_ for as long as they’ve been…Turned.

Stiles takes a moment to think about blaming what just happened with Derek on the coming moon, so close and heavy in the sky that Stiles feels like she could reach up, clasp it in her palms and pull it down, into her mouth, swallow it like a peach until it sat in her stomach for _real_ , instead of just in _feeling_ , running through the woods until it filled up her limbs with cool warmth and stunning light, until it glowed from her skin like a flashlight, vivid and bright.

But she doesn’t.

She had _known_ something was going to break, with them and Derek, aloof, cold Derek with his glaring eyes and pursed lips, always silent and disapproving, stiff and pained and hidden fear. Stiles had felt it more and more, as the days passed and nothing was said, as the older boy tried to bottle it inside and ignore it.

He had just lost his sister, and what? Gained _them_ , a bunch of unruly teens that had nothing on what his Pack _should_ _have_ been? Standing where his _family_ should have stood?

Stiles gets it. She _does_. Which is why she gives it it’s due respect, and doesn’t pin what had just happened on the moon, lovely and bright and as distant as Derek himself.

Instead, she pastes on a small smile, weak, and lets Jackson hold her, peering out past his shoulders to where Peter is murmuring to Derek, his eyes gentle and his hands light on his nephew’s shoulders.

They have time enough for everything else, later.

Later.

*

There’s still almost two hours before Stiles has to go home and lie to her dad, to lie in bed and resoundingly _not_ sleep, maybe do some homework that isn’t due for another few weeks, and maybe even look shit up on Wiki until her eyes bleed.

Ya know. _Routine_ _stuff_.

Instead, they go back to the Hale House, quiet in their seats in Chris Argent’s SUV. After so many rides, it’s smell is familiar and comforting, and Stiles rests her aching face lightly on the cool, dark leather seats. Her hair is loose, annoying around her face, her rubber-band snapped and Allison’s is the same, deep, black tresses stained chalky and brown.

Everyone is dirty with sweat and blood and the dusty refuse of a gone age, the remains of the rail depot clinging under their nails in dark lines, scrapped into skin with glass and grimy wall-residue.

Skin is coated, sticky and muddy in turns, from the recent rain, and clothing is torn or shredded or _absent_.

Stiles pulls what remains of her shirt closer over her chest. She had flipped it, before getting into the car, tying it with a knot around her stomach. She looks like a, rather abused and particularly bloody, Daisy Duke.

Damn Derek, she thinks, resigned and not _really_ mad. At least she had been wearing a sports bra, and he hadn’t caught _that_.

(She’s lost count of how many shirts she’s running through. At this rate, she’s going to need to go shopping, _God_ , and how absolutely _horrifying_ was _that_?)

Scott and Allison are beside her, radiating heat where they curl around each other, Allison’s head resting on his bare shoulder, her skin white against his. Jackson is in the way back, stretched out, obviously too tired to sulk after loosing a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock with Stiles over the remaining backseat. (Because, by unanimous, unspoken rule, no one rides shot-gun except for Allison, to avoid looking suspicious, and _she_ never _does_ , because she wants to sit with _Scott_ , and so Jackson and Stiles play each time the opportunity comes up. So far, its 4:6, Stilinski. _Whoot_.)

Thankfully, Chris doesn’t listen to music while he drives. Stiles wonders, vaguely, if he ever did; if he liked the mellow, basey hum of smooth jazz, the upbeat scream of guitar-rock, or maybe the ocean back-noise of classical.

She wants to ask, but doesn’t, as they pull up the Hale Road, the trees a well-remembered blur of darkness and green just outside of the window.

Derek and Peter were in Derek’s wet-dream of a Camaro, leading the way by nearly ten minutes, and they pull up beside them smoothly, fresh gravel crunching under wheel.

(Stiles’s Jeep is oh so _conspicuously_ parked in front of Scott’s house, beneath his lighted window.)

Stiles unfolds herself, undoing her seatbelt and hopping from the back, closing the door carefully to avoid breaking it.

(And hadn’t _those_ lessons been _fun_ ; midnight trips to the junkyard to practice opening car doors and shutting trunks, pressing buttons without crushing them into dashboards and doors, rolling down windows and putting in CDs and tapes, though, really, who listened to _tapes_ anymore?)

Her tennis shoes are ragged and filthy, and Stiles wiggles her toes absently in her damp, sweaty socks, wrinkling her nose at the feeling. Damn it, it was almost time to buy another pair, she figured, glancing down at the hole in her left toe before ignoring it, heading around to the back of the SUV.

Stiles lets Jackson out so that he doesn’t have to try climbing over the seats and maybe accidentally scratching the leather. He nods in thanks, a shallow bob of his head that has her punching him in the shoulder lightly, shoving him towards the trailers.

Then she stops, eyes widening to realize--

“ _I call first shower!_ ”she yells, panicky and loud, and races for the farthest trailer to the sounds of Allison’s laughing and Jackson and Scott’s subsequent fighting as they run after her, each fighting for the other open spot. It’s a rambunctious canopy of noise rising to the sky, laughing and shoving and the pounding of feet.

Out of the three trailers, one is Chris and Allison’s, one is Peter and Derek’s, and one is Jackson, Scott, and Stiles’s. Well, in theory anyway. They keep spare clothes there, in any case, because arriving home bloody and covered in the woods would just be _such as great idea_ , _really_.

In practice, it’s looser, with most of them invading Peter and Derek’s trailer for the TV and washing machines and _meals_.

Each double-wide, mercifully, comes with two full-sized bathrooms. And even though they’re connected, they each have their own water-heaters.

So, really, the only fighting is between the boys and Stiles as for who gets to shower first.

And Stiles isn’t afraid to cheat. Hell, she knows that Jackson is _stronger_ than her and that Scott is _faster_.

As such? She isn’t _worried_ about using the handicap of a head-start or, like now, stripping out of her shirt as she runs, darting up the stairs and tearing through the trailer to the bathroom, laughing to the sound of Jackson slamming into the front door that she had closed behind her and Scott growling, trying to push him over to get to the other side of the trailer.

Ha! Let the brawn and the speed try to best her!

The brain will out!

*

Okay, so, she _would_ have been taking a shower, really she would have, if she hadn’t noticed the fact that her upper back and arms were _glittering_.

Like, with _glass_.

What the _actual_ fuck. Where had her werewolfy powers gone _now_ , when she _actually_ _needed_ _them_?

Stiles scowled, contorting herself to try and see her back better.

It didn’t work.

So, her shirt in the trash, she’s about to _stomp_ _huffily_ over to the Argent trailer and maybe beg Chris to help her out, her arms crossed over her chest in frustration because, even though she’s just in a bra, barefoot, her jeans filthy and torn, she is _not_ going to risk ruining another shirt just to get ‘ _decent_ ’ to have a few cuts cleaned out.

Most of the time, being a werewolf takes care of it. _Apparently_ , Derek had never gotten sick in his _life_ , only getting shots for school as a show.

So, Stiles probably _wouldn’t_ get an infection and die, _probably_ , but that didn’t mean that the glass wasn’t going to get sealed up inside her skin, healed over without a scar. And if it hadn’t pushed its way out by now?

Needless to say, Stiles wasn’t taking any chances when there was a man with a supply of saline and gauze just a few feet away.

Sticking out her tongue childishly, Stiles grudgingly seceded the shower to Scott, who was painfully eager to get back to Allison, and marched to her door, threw it open--

And almost ran into the Devil’s chest.

The Devil being Chris Argent, anyway.

*

Under the bright kitchen light, Stiles curls further over the back of the chair, holding her hair over a shoulder with a hand and a towel against her bare chest with another.

Her sports bra was cut in-half, trashed a few feet away, the white cotton the dirty brown of dried blood.

Behind her, Chris Argent worked with a pair of tweezers to get the glass out of her back.

It has Stiles’s shoulders on edge, being so close to him while she’s half-naked. And, sure, she knows that he’s seen her in nothing but a pair of pants and a bra before, shirts being the sad victims of many an attack, but she’s just _sitting_ _there_.

And he’s _looking_ at her.

Okay, sure, it’s not the intense, hair-raising focus that he normally gives her, his icy eyes trailing over her shoulders or across her cheeks, before he meets her eyes and smiles that small, careful grin, but it’s still, like, _crazy_ _tense_ to have him so close. His eyes are just, _so_ piercing, and he’s so warm; his hands light but quick, utterly efficient as they touch her.

Periodically, Stiles takes the opportunity to press her cheek to the wood of the chair, viciously letting the pain flare up and wash away the dull dig of the forceps as they pried specs of glass from her skin. Every few seconds, there was a tinkle of sound as more and more chunks were dropped, bloody and disgusting, into a stomach bowl on the table.

Embarrassingly enough, Stiles could hear herself when she let out a low, trembling sigh as the pain spiked.

Face hot, she could feel it when Chris paused, his hands stilling. He hid it with ease though, sparing her by doing a quick wash of saline down her back, where it soaked into the towel he had tucked into the waistband of her pants. It was cool and comforting and utterly retched, all at the same time.

Her toes curled into the rungs below her seat as she tried, frustrated, not to fidget. She buried her face into the crook of her arm, quietly mortified.

It was just some glass, _God_ , could she _be_ any more _pathetic_?

“Stay still,” Chris muttered, his voice low. One of his hands paused to cup the back of her neck, and it was like a shot of pure fire racing down her spine.

Stiles could _feel_ the heat of him, so close behind her, the press of his hands as he touched at her back, her shoulders and upper arms, feeling carefully for anything else. It was _maddening_.

And it sent a _thrill_ up her back, a confusing mix of emotions swirling in her head that had her wolf raising _her_ own head, a deeper instinct to move, to wiggle closer to the heat, to rub her cheek over the rough stubble dotting the older man’s chiseled jaw, to lave her tongue over his pulse and hear it race in time to her own.

Stiles swallowed thickly, praying that Chris didn’t _smell_ or _hear_ or _think_ _anything_.

Because Stiles _felt_ her eyes flash, and closed them quickly, feeling the light brush of her eyelashes against her cheeks trying to consume the heat of Chris Argent’s rough hands on her back.

Another few minutes, and Stiles took to counting her breaths as the digging got rougher, and metal cold against her skin as Chris pulled a few deeper pieces of glass out.

Another wash, another feel, a few more pieces.

Another wash. The scrap of his breath against the back of her neck as he pulled away.

“Done,” he said, his voice soft.

Stiles, blush coming back in full force, let her eyes blink open and rolled her shoulders carefully as she sat up. She couldn’t feel anything, thankfully, and she let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. Her back still throbbed, but it was lesser now, more akin to what you felt when you pulled open your paper cuts than the monstrous, roaring pain of before.

THANK THE SWEET LITTLE BABY JESUS.

“ _Thank_ _you_ ,” she said gratefully, practically moaning, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her wrist, suddenly itching with the need to be clean and the fighting with the urge to _run_ _away_ as fast as she possibly could from Chris Argent and his stupid, hot, scruffy face and piercing eyes that always met her own when she tried to look at him.

The trailer was empty except for them, Jackson and Scott over at Peter and Derek’s, Allison with them. They had left, clean, minutes before, leaving just Stiles and Chris in the light of the kitchen, dirty.

Stiles felt their absence _acutely_.

 _Annnnddddd…Chris_ didn’t move from behind her, though Stiles heard him set down the forceps and strip out of his gloves.

She had a _visceral_ _image_ of his long, pale fingers shedding blue latex, and almost swallowed her own tongue, clearing her throat painfully and _keeping her eyes to herself_.

She thought, for a moment, about clearing her throat a bit more, er, _pointedly_ , about asking what he was _doing_ \--when his fingers lighted against the top of her shoulder, as weightless as a butterfly’s wings, gentle and _careful_ and _hesitant_.

Stiles felt her breath catch in her throat, her heart suddenly pounding all the faster.

His fingers traced a short line down her back, swerving around where Derek’s claws had torn into her. The tips of his fingers were rough from callous and use, and so impossibly _warm_ , it felt like he was drawing on her skin with the tip of a _firework_ , the potential of explosion lurking around the edges of her awareness.

“No problem,” Chris said abruptly, standing, jerking his hand away as he stepped back.

Stiles almost gave herself whip-lash as her head followed him, her body twisting as she fought with her own awkward limbs to _get_ _up_.

Abruptly, the space between them, though it was only a few feet as he dumped bloody gauze and the container of glass into the trashcan, his shoulders as solid as brick, was as wide as the Grand Canyon.

And all of the approachability of the situation, the words on Stiles’s lips, died vicious, painful deaths as Chris smiled his fake _fake_ smile at her, moving towards the door, probably to go and get clean himself.

The space, the emptiness in his eyes when he looked at her, directly staring at her chin as he made his quick exit, had Stiles’s heart rolling in her chest.

Stiles felt _sick_ , as she stood there alone, half-naked in the light of the kitchen.

She felt… _dirty_. So _keenly_ _filthy_ that for a moment, she thought about shaking out of her skin, gnawing through her bones and sinew so that she didn’t have to _be there_ , in that moment where the door closed and she heard Chris Argent practically _run_ to get away from her.

_Run._

Swallowing around an unconscious sob that caught in somewhere in her sternum, Stiles blinked a few, quick times, and took a _deep_ breath. She let it out, and didn’t bother trying to smile as she slunk to the bathroom, something like shame curling around her insides like a snake.

There, _violently_ ignoring her reflection, she resisted the urge to reach back and feel along her back, to test the skin, swallowing around her heart in her throat, the rushing of blood in her ears.

Already, she could feel the skin beginning to knit, the tissue layer forming, sealing blood and subcutaneous layers away. It was like a rush, a sudden ray of moonlight on bare skin, pulling the hurt and pain away, into the ground and sky and air.

Stiles shivered with the feeling, and this time she _did_ reach back, fingers gingerly tracing where she knew there had been a slice of torn skin. The skin was smooth, a pale expanse under her touch. Whole.

She got into the shower.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so, I'm BACK! From Outerspace *dadadatdatda*...
> 
> (No, but, really, I'm working on it.) 
> 
> AND: Thanks go out to those of you who like this series and wanted to see more, even if you WERE confused about what was going on, relationship-wise. But a little confusion never hurt anybody, right?
> 
> ALSO: If you read my other works, please know that I have since gone through and spot-checked them, editing here and there. Mostly typos, some tense, some cultural mishaps and incorrect information as it was pointed out to me, but still. Everything is much better now. Really. :) Thank you for your input and support. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy.


End file.
